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Treasury Targets Taiwanese Proliferators

1/16/2009

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Washington, DC--The U.S. Department of Treasury today designated two Taiwanese individuals and two Taiwanese entities pursuant to Executive Order 13382, an authority aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their supporters, and at isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems.

"Proliferators depend on access to the international financial and commercial systems to support their dangerous trade," said Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "Our action today exposes a North Korean procurement channel, and we urge governments and companies worldwide to cut this channel off entirely."

Alex H.T. Tsai (Tsai) has been designated for providing, or attempting to provide, financial, technological or other support for, or goods or services in support of the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID), which was identified as a proliferator by President George W. Bush in the June 2005 Annex to Executive Order 13382.

Tsai has been supplying goods with weapons production capabilities to KOMID and its subordinates since the late 1990s, and he has been involved in shipping items to North Korea that could be used to support North Korea's advanced weapons program. On June 19, 2008, Tsai was indicted by Taiwan's Taipei District Prosecutors Office for forging shipping invoices and illegally shipping restricted materials to North Korea.

Global Interface Company Inc. has been designated for being owned or controlled by Tsai, who is a shareholder of the company and acts as its president. Tsai is also the general manager of Trans Merits Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Global Interface Company Inc. that has been designated for being owned or controlled by Global Interface Company Inc.

Alex H.T. Tsai's wife, Lu-chi Su, has also been designated pursuant to Executive Order 13382 for acting or purporting to act on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Trans Merits Co. Ltd. Lu-chi Su is an officer in Global Interface Company Inc. and Trans Merits Co. Ltd. and is directly involved in the companies' operations.

Designations under E.O. 13382 are implemented by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and they prohibit all transactions between the designees and any U.S. person, and freeze any assets the designees may have under U.S. jurisdiction.